o human being had ever previously been seated in it. There
I gave free vent to my bitter recollections--my wife, my brothers,
my sister-in-law, engrossed my imagination. When the thought of my
son drove away these sombre reveries, I returned slowly to my house,
where I found the poor child, who, by his caresses, seemed to try to
find some way to cause a change in my grief; but they seemed only to
recall the time when Anna always came to welcome me home, and when,
clasping me in her arms, she caused me to forget all the toil and
trouble I met with when absent from her. Alas! that blissful time
had flown away, and was never to return; and in losing my companion
I lost every happiness.

My friend Vidie tried every means in his power to rouse me. He spoke to
me often of France, of my mother, and of the consolation I should feel
on presenting my son to her. The love of my country, and the thought
of finding there those affections of which I stood so much in need,
was a soft balm, which lulled for a while the sufferings that were
constantly vibrating in the bottom of my heart.

My Indians were deeply afflicted on learning the resolution I had
taken of quitting them. They showed their trouble by saying to me,
every time they addressed me! "Oh, master: what will become of us
when we shall not see you again?" I quieted them as well as I could,
by assuring them that Vidie would exert himself for their welfare;
that when my son should be grown up, I would come back with him and
then never leave them. They answered me with their prayers: "May God
grant it, master! But what a long time we shall have to pass without
seeing you! However, we shall not forget you."

CHAPTER XII.

My friend Adolphe Barrot visits me at Jala-Jala--The Bamboo
Cane--The Cocoa-Nut Tree--The Banana--Majestic Forests of Gigantic
Trees--The Leeches--A Tropical Storm in a Forest--An Indian
Bridge--"Bernard the Hermit"--We arrive at Binangon-de-Lampon--The
Ajetas--Veneration of the Ajetas for their Dead--Poison used by
the Ajetas--I carry away a Skeleton--We Embark on the Pacific in
an old Canoe, reach Maoban, and ultimately arrive at Jala-Jala.

At this epoch of my recollections, in the midst of my melancholy and
of my troubles, I formed an intimate and enduring friendship with
a compatriot, a good and excellent man, for whom I always preserve
the attachment first formed in a foreign country, several thousand
leagues